launchthe
festival of Holi in cities and villages throughout India,
and

people
have only begun to celebrate. We are in Banaras, one of the

oldest
and most sacred of Indian cities. It is the city of the deity
Shiva,

considered
by many Hindus to be the origin, center, and final end of

the
universe. Thousands come to Banaras to die each year to achieve

spiritual
liberation from the continuing cycle of rebirth, and more

than
a million pilgrimsHindu, Moslem, Buddhist, and Jainvisit
the

myriad
temples, shrines, and holy teachers of this city and bathe

along
a three-mile length of steps (known as ghats) that lead
into the

sacred
Ganges river.

It
is difficult to recognize such sanctity amidst all the revelry
on this particular day. The storefronts are boarded up. Roving
bands of drunken young men have taken over the neighborhoodsdancing,
wrestling, and shouting insults at one another. Women and children
have retreated to the safety of their homes to watch the spectacle
from balconies and rooftops and to throw colored water on the
crowds below. The only semblance of order in the neighborhood,
a lone policeman, is so intoxicated he can hardly walk. It would
seem as if this holy city has been turned upside down.

Indeed,
it has.

Holi
is a popular Hindu festival that occurs each year on the full
moon concluding the lunar month of phalgun, usually corresponding
to March of the Gregorian calendar. Its origins are most likely
prehistoric, a rite of spring celebrating fertility and a new
harvest. While this festival embodies many different legends,
the dominant folklore in Banaras concerns an evil female rakasha
(demon) named Holika, who conspires with the King to have a
pious young prince killed for his belief in Krishna. Taking
a secret potion to protect herself, she jumps into a bonfire
with the young boy. Yet because of the strength of his faith,
the prince emerges unscathed while the evil Holika is consumed
by the flames. Symbolic bonfires begin the first phase of Holi
at midnight, when they are ignited in neighborhoods throughout
Banaras. Young men gather to revel and dance around these bonfires,
which can rise as high as thirty feet. Families visit the pyres
as well, performing a ritual prayer known as puja and circumambulating
the flames to purify themselves of sins from the previous year.

This
rite of purification is also a significant rite of reversal
in which society briefly turns its rules upside down; during
the second phase of Holi, many social taboos are temporarily
suspended. The idea is to bring the years dirt and sin
out into the open so it can be washed away. Hence, the debauchery.
This presents a special opportunity for people at the bottom
of Indias social hierarchy to unleash their frustrations
and tell the upper classes exactly what they think of them with
(relative) impunity.Because
the rules of social hierarchy are particularly restrictive in
Banaras, it is not surprising that the second phase of Holi
would be all the more rowdy in this city. It is also more colorful,
as women and children squirt each other and passersby with pichkaris,
long syringes filled with colored water, and bystanders and
celebrants alike are pelted with water balloons, buckets of
dyed water, and occasional cow dung patties throughout the morning.

There
is little if any official regulation of these activities; nothing
prevents this festival from escalating into a full-scale riot
save the unwritten rules of the culture itself. Yet it would
seem that culture alone is adequate, for by noon the streets
of Banaras grow quiet. The men return to their homes, discard
their old clothes like an outer layer of skin, and literally
wash away their sins. They don new white kurta pajamas and return
to the streets with their families, hugging each other affectionately
and gently applying a colored powder to the cheeks of friends,
neighbors, and loved ones. Students pay their respects to their
teachers; children to their parents. Most Hindu families host
visitors well into the night and serve traditional pastries
called gujiya. The time-honored order is restored and reaffirmed.

Such
is the nature of this rite of reversal, which not only acts
as a kind of cultural pressure valve but also reestablishes
the cultural norm by way of its exceptions. Such rites are not
unique to Holi; similar examples can be found in Mardi
Gras and the Carnival of the Americas, large-scale festivities
of uninhibited excess just prior to the austerities observed
by Catholics during Lent. In recent years, the antinomian edge
of these American celebrations has been blunted as they have
entered the mainstream of popular culture. This also is occurring
among practitioners of Holi as India becomes increasingly
westernized under the influence of the global marketplace. Yet
many places in India continue to celebrate Holi in the
more traditional way. Banaras is one such case, a city torn
between the competing forces of old and new in post-independence
India. It is therefore both ironic and appropriate that one
of Indias holiest places is also one of its Holi-est
places.

Ron
Barrett is completing his Ph.D. dissertation on stigma among
leprosy patients in Banaras. Victor Balabans work has
appeared in Life and Emory
Magazine. Barrett and Balaban documented the celebration
of Holi in part with funding from the Emory Program in
Asian Studies. These photographs will be part of an exhibition
in the Schatten Gallery of the Woodruff Library, August 20October
15, 2001.